6 Steps To Make Social Media Content Worth Sharing

Have you ever wondered why some social media posts are more popular than others? And what it is about them that grabs all the attention?

Here’s some good news, it’s not all luck and happenstance. As Professor Jonah Berger explains in his book ‘Contagious‘ there are 6 guiding principles which provide a set of guidelines to making your content go as viral as Kim and Kanye.

This article focuses on the 6 ‘Contagious’ principles.

S.T.E.P.P.S:

Social currency – We share things that make us look good.

Triggers – We share what’s at the top of our minds.

Emotion – When we care we share.

Public – Built to show, built to grow.

Practicalvalue – News you can use.

Stories – Information travels under the guise of idle chatter.

I’ll talk you through each of the principles and show you how you can apply them in your social media marketing.

How To Make Social Media Content Worth Sharing

1. Social Currency

Social Currency is all about sharing content that makes you look good. Our social media profiles are a direct reflection of us, our personality and our “social status”. So when people are checking us out online, we want to give a good impression.

A bit like the house you live in, or the car your drive, what you talk about online influences peoples impression of you.

So your content needs to make your followers “look good” when they share it. And by “look good” I mean, make them appear more clever, rich, funny or cool.

Does it Blend?

This video from Blendtec is a great example of social currency. They take an ordinary blender and turn it into an extraordinary blender by videoing it blending random items like golf balls and phones.

The beauty is that you’re talking about the Blendtec blender and how it cool it is and that it blends things that you didn’t realise were possible, like iPhones!

But the real message it’s giving, is that it’s a quality product built to last.

2. Triggers

A Trigger is the stimulus that prompts you to think about a related thing. It’s like how Fridays remind you of fish and chips, or roast dinners remind you of Sundays.

When someone says “have a break”, what pops in your mind? KitKat!

KitKat is the perfect example of how to use triggers to prompt people to think of their product.

Whenever you’re about to have a break, you think about having a KitKat. That campaign was a huge hit in the early 90’s and put KitKat back on the map after a rapid decline in sales.

When you’re thinking about your product or service, what memorable images, products or videos can you link with it to create a trigger?

3. Emotion

Emotion is really important when it comes to getting your content shared on social media.

Being able to evoke a strong feeling towards something makes people more likely to share it. Jonah describes this as “physiological arousal.”

Physiological Arousal

Physiological arousal is the state that gets us ready for action. Imagine your team is on the verge of winning a gold medal in the Winter Olympics, you might start shouting at the telly, jumping up and down and feeling your heart rate go up. Similarly if you watch a scary film, you might hide behind your hands, shut your eyes or scream. That’s arousal.

There are 2 different types of physiological arousal, negative and positive. Both emotional states have equal influence on whether content gets shared or not.

If you feel strongly about something, whether negative or positive, you are more likely to want to tell people about it. It’s these high arousal emotions that will get people to share your content.

High arousal emotions include:

Tapping into these emotions in your content will increase it’s chances of getting shared.

4. Public

Use your customers or audience to make things publicly visible and others will follow.

There’s a very good reason why Steve Jobs slapped a massive Apple icon on MacBooks, iPhones and iPads; you’re advertising the brand, but there’s something more powerful happening and it’s called “Social Proofing”.

Social proofing is where people emulate the actions of others in an attempt to reflect the correct behaviour in a given situation – wikipedia.

In other words, when people don’t know what to do, where to turn or what to buy, they turn to others for guidance.

To be able to copy someones behaviour we have to be able to see it first. By making things more visible, makes it easy to imitate; and if it’s easy to imitate things become popular.

Some good examples of harnessing the power of the public are cancer awareness campaigns:

Wearing pink in October shows you support breast cancer awareness.

Growing a moustache in November or “Movember” shows support for mens health and cancer research.

A way you can use the ‘Public’ principle in social media could be by highlighting client ratings and reviews, including images and videos of people using your product or service.

And, through case studies you can put a spotlight on the people and companies you’ve worked with.

If everyone sees that you’ve worked with other companies or people like them, you’ll persuade them to buy from you.